Elliot Diringer to Direct International Strategies for Pew Center on Global Climate Change

The Pew Center on Global Climate Change announced today that Elliot Diringer, a Deputy White House Press Secretary and veteran environmental journalist, will join its staff next month as Director of International Strategies.

Mr. Diringer, 42, will oversee the Center's analysis of the international challenges posed by climate change and strategies for meeting them. With Senior International Fellows Sophie Chou and Christie Jorge Santelises, he also will direct the Center's outreach to key governments and actors involved in international climate change negotiations.

"We are delighted to have Elliot join the Pew Center," said Eileen Claussen, the center's president. "Elliot brings a critical set of skills that will help strengthen our efforts to bring about fair and effective international strategies to combat climate change."

From 1983 to 1997, Mr. Diringer was a reporter and editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, where he covered the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and authored several award-winning environmental series. In 1995-96, he was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, where he studied international environmental law and policy.

Mr. Diringer, joined the Council on Environmental Quality in the Executive Office of the President in 1997 as Director of Communications, and later was named Senior Policy Advisor. While at CEQ, he helped develop major policy initiatives, led White House press and communications strategy on the environment, and was a member of U.S. delegations to climate change negotiations. Last year, he was named Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Press Secretary.

About the Pew Center: The Pew Center was established in May 1998 by the Pew Charitable Trusts, one of the United States' largest philanthropies and an influential voice in efforts to improve the quality of the environment. The Pew Center is a nonprofit, non-partisan and independent organization dedicated to providing credible information, straight answers and innovative solutions in the effort to address global climate change. Eileen Claussen, the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, leads the Pew Center.

The Pew Center includes the Business Environmental Leadership Council, a group of large, mostly Fortune 500 corporations all working with the Pew Center to address issues related to climate change. The companies do not contribute financially to the Pew Center; it is solely supported by contributions from charitable foundations.

An important area of the Pew Center's work is to commission studies on the scientific, economic and policy issues surrounding climate change. Some of those recent studies have explored such issues as the Kyoto Mechanisms, compliance, carbon sequestration, environmental impacts of climate change, and ways to improve the economic analysis of climate policies. A complete list of these reports and downloadable copies of them can be found at www.c2es.org.